The 4 C’s of Leadership

There are many attributes that are common to all that lead. Business leaders, Military leaders,Pastors, Scout Leaders.. you get the point.
Of those attributes there are 4 that all leaders need to have to be effective in their leading toward the High Performance team. They are competence, Committment, Courage, and Compassion.
Competence because no one wants to follow a knuckle head that does not know what he is doing. Its that simple, you need to know how to lead and you need to know or at least understand what the task is and how to complete it to get other to follow you. Now you don’t have to be an expert, but you need to be competent enough to surround yourself with those that do know how and then use their strength to enhance your weakness.
Committment. You must be committed to both the task and those that you lead. If you lack committment, those that follow you will mirror you level and you will never be a high performance team. You need to be committed enough to get to know how to do the task, that means get educated. You need to be committed to the needs of those you lead. You need to be committed to the reason for the task and the desired outcome. We make commitments daily in leading our families, our Scout units, and working at our jobs. You know, the jobs that pay for our Scouting hobby.
Courage. A Scout is Brave. Sometimes doing the right thing is not the most popular and the leader is always the one that gets either the evil eye or the attitudes when he makes decisions that are not popular. Doing the right thing is always the right thing to do, so you must be courageous in decision making. You may not be the most popular, but in the end you will have done the right thing and your team will be better for it.
And Finally, Compassion. Meeting the needs of those you lead takes a lot of compassion. You need to know your people and what makes them tick. To be an effective communicator and leader, you need to be able to dedicate time and energy to getting to know the folks you lead. This way you can feel what they do and react to why they may be done, up, or somewhere in between. To be a high performance team you need to understand the needs of the led and they will appreciate you as the leader for it. Genuine caring leadership is the best way to move to High Performance status.
Well there you go 4 solid attributes of the leader. Have them and you will be effective, don’t have them and you will have to settle for second best.

Speaking of second best, our Troop worked on Pioneering tonight at the meeting. They built the Gateway that they are going to assemble at Camporee. The JASM set a challenge for the patrols, the Patrol that had the best knots would all get an i pad. The younger guys one and here is their prize!

Yeah, we have a lot of fun in our Troop. They all had a great laugh and then we closed with Vespers!

Thanks for all the feedback lately. I really appreciate the comments and emails, keep them coming.

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2 thoughts on “The 4 C’s of Leadership”

Love your podcasts. I subscribe on my android phone and listen to them in the car (hands-free, thru my radio). GREAT STUFF! Your dedication and good advice never fails to inspire and motivate me. I’ve recommended the SMM blog/podcast to all of our troop leaders as supplemental training.

Our 14 boy, 2 patrol troop has been on a 2 year journey to reinvent and reinvigorate ourselves. I remember that on one of you prior ‘casts you had mentioned that when your Troop had planned a high-adventure activity, you didn’t restrict younger or new Scouts from participating.

Now to the real reason I’m writing- what our troop is doing this weekend, and God, I’m so proud of them. The PLC picked the Boating/Canoeing theme for this month, and after a month of swim tests, permits, float plans, finding put-in and take-out points, coordinating transportation and canoe rental from a neighboring Council, nearly 100% of the boys are going on a 27 mile overnight thru-canoeing trip (camping halfway). We’ve recently picked up 5 new enthused Webelos (2 more next month), and this will be their first campout as Boy Scouts- and an unbelievably awesome way to continue their Scouting careers.

We will have a brief refresher on Safety Afloat, parts of paddle/canoes, etc on the riverbank. Experienced boys will be paired with less experienced/novice boys. Each canoe will have topo maps of the route, and 4 adult leaders will “lead from the back”.

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